Both High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology are important evolutions of the Third Generation (3G) mobile communication technology. Data packet scheduling, retransmitting, etc. of HSDPA and HSUPA are controlled by a base station node (Node B hereafter). This kind of control has higher speed and may adapt to channel changes better, reduce transmission delay and increase data throughput.
Two downlink physical channels and one uplink physical channel are newly added in the HSDPA technology for high-speed transmission of data of a User Equipment (UE), which are respectively a High Speed Physical Downlink Shared Channel (HS-PDSCH) for bearing downlink user data, a High Speed Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH) for bearing downlink control information and a High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel (HS-DPCCH) for bearing uplink feedback information of the UE. The base station gets information through the HS-DPCCH about whether the data is correctly received, and if not, initiates retransmission; otherwise, transmits new data.
As a special downlink dedicated channel, a Fractional-Dedicated Physical Channel (F-DPCH) combined with the HSDPA technique may replace a downlink Dedicated Physical Data Channel (DPDCH)/Dedicated Physical Control Channel (DPCCH) to effectively improve the utilization efficiency of a downlink channelization code, and has been introduced in the prior art. Thus, when a subscriber conducts Packet Switch (PS) domain related services, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), the F-DPCH may be used in cooperation with the HSDPA on the downlink to map the Signaling Radio Bearing (SRB) to the HSDPA without the need of distributing a separated downlink dedicated physical channel resource, thereby improving the downlink capacity and utilization efficiency of the downlink channelization code of the system.
The definition of the capability of a UE for supporting the F-DPCH is expressed by an Information Element (IE) supporting the HS-PDSCH: if the UE supports the HS-PDSCH, it must support the F-DPCH too. However, as it is not defined in the capability set of a local cell of the Node B whether the local cell supports the F-DPCH, the Controlling Radio Network Controller (CRNC) is not able to know whether the local cell of the Node B supports the F-DPCH.
As shown in FIG. 1, a method for distributing resources of a Node B includes the following processes. In process 101, a Serving Radio Network Controller (SRNC)/CRNC transmits an Audit Request message to the Node B. In process 102, the Node B returns an Audit Response message. In process 103, the SRNC/CRNC is not able to know whether the local cell supports the F-DPCH on receiving the response message. In process 104, a cell is established on the local cell. In process 105, a UE in the cell which uses the services provided by the local cell requests establishment of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection, i.e. establishment of a signaling connection in the PS domain. In process 106, the SRNC/CRNC instructs the Node B to distribute a DPDCH and a DPCCH for the UE to bear the data and signaling of the UE. The SRNC/CRNC transmits a Radio Link Establishing Request message to the Node B according to the distribution instruction. No F-DPCH channel information is carried in the request message.
Therefore, the F-DPCH is not used with the Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection established between the RNC and the UE. In practical applications, the above-mentioned solution has the disadvantage that F-DPCH resources are not sufficiently used.
A major reason for the problem is that the RNC is not able to obtain the F-DPCH capability information of the Node B, which makes the RNC not capable of dynamically adjusting strategy of distributing F-DPCH resources, and thus F-DPCH resources cannot be sufficiently used.